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The Mỹ Sơn Site

One of the 70 Hindu Temples at the Mỹ Sơn Site in central Vietnam The last page showed some of the artefacts gathered into the museum at Da Nang, which were taken from the site at Mỹ Sơn (sounds a bit like 'Mihi Sern'), this page shows the site, or at least those bits of it which have survived the daily encroachment of the jungle, and the many wars, particularly the destruction caused by the American bombing of the area. Information was minimal at the time these pictures were taken in 2011, lamely too many captions just have to say 'Temple'. Jungle wins every battle hands down here in the heat and humidity of central Vietnam From some angles the temple complex appears extensive... ...from others all that remains are the piles of rubble left by the bombing. Here one of the many lingam still stands Some of the oldest buildings are partially supported and protected Mỹ Sơn was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1999 This whole temple complex seems to have been a religious and cultural centre for the Champas, separate from the political centre The temples grouped around the central area were mostly built in the ninth and tenth centuries at the height of the Champa regime Officially the whole site is the Mỹ Sơn Sanctuary, a phrase also used for this one building Passageway with one of the many lingams that dot the site A guard watches over his monuments and the stream of photographers that try to capture them Temples near the entrance Floral carving on a column Two figure carvings with headdresses This corner of protected brickwork (left), has some of the oldest carvings, dating from the eighth century. In the picture above is a Buddha figure (right) and a dancing Hindu figure (left) This strange script is written Cham, which is a descendent of the Indian Brahmi script. Brahmi was in use from about 2,300 years ago, notably for writing Sanskrit which was previously a purely oral language. Thus it was one of the first ways that speech, as opposed to the meaning of Chinese characters, was written down. View an enlarged image in a new window. The remarkable thing about these carvings is that they are cut straight into the brick of the building. This process is still not fully understood, but it is likely that the building was constructed first of ready fired un-carved bricks, and that these were carved in situ Intact entrance to a temple One temple has been cleaned and a number of carvings assembled in it, including this Hindu dancer Carving of elephants Statue of a regal figure Figure in brick wall The whole site retains an equivocal air, the encroaching jungle, the piles of rubble from the bombing, the warnings that visitors should keep to paths; and these temples, dotted across the landscape, seeming tousled and unshaven, and a little unsure of their ancestry: Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian. Altogether a special place with that ever rarer quality of unpolished, unprocessed immediacy The next page takes you to something more on Hindu culture: a wedding in Delhi, along with a few shots of less commonly seen aspects of the town.

Connections...

The last page was about the Champa Museum in Đà Nẵng To more ruins, those of Persepolis in the arid heat of Iran To a modern Vietnamese Temple - Đền Cờn Or go to the page which was added one year ago.

Saturday 8th April 2017